Wednesday, September 11, 2013

How Strong Is Your Sheet Of Paper?

(Submitted by Ashlee Dodge)

Today in my fearfully, easy trigonometry class my fellow peeps, or classmates, and I did a lab project to see just how strong a regular sheet of paper can be. So to start this dream crushing experiment we are only permitted these supplies; one regular eight and a half by eleven inch sheet of paper, a roll of cellophane tape, a pair of scissors, a piece of cardboard roughly five and a half by eleven inches, and a plastic ruler. Also, we will need at least ten huge, heavy bricks. Just kidding, we used regular bricks like the ones used to build houses.

In our experiment we only had 30 intense minutes to make a plan and then build our majestic paper base. The more bricks your base could hold the better grade you received. Some were lucky enough to get 3 or four bricks, others were surprised with only one brick, while the rest failed miserably and got no bricks at all. So how strong is your piece of paper? Well, the first group in our class to test this was Miles and Alex. Their base was four cylinder shaped stilts, and they put them under the four corners of the cardboard. The base withheld a total of three bricks. Another group, Shay and Brittani, who had the similar idea got the same amount of bricks. The rest of the brave and anxious contestants were Josh and Aaron, Taylor and Jayden, Nate and Makenzy, and Sara and Ashlee. Even though they all had excetional ideas, they were all crushed by those bricks. After our little experiment Mr. Bradley finally told us the secret to success, he said the best way for a sheet of paper to withhold at least ten bricks was to just have two big circles, with just a little piece of tape.